liz phair quotes

I love scoring. Putting music to picture is a rewarding challenge and one that relies on interpretation of emotion - as in, what is the pivotal feeling in a scene and which character's point of view is driving it at any given moment?

When I use the Internet, it's pretty much strictly for music. Checking out other people's web sites, what's going on, listening to music. It's pretty much a musical thing for me.

Lana Del Rey seems to be bothering everybody because she allegedly 'remade' herself from a folk singing, girl-next-door type into an electro-urban kitty cat on the prowl (of course I like her), and they feel she is inauthentic.

Everything that people lob at you who don't know you, it all hurts. When you're doing something as simple as making music, which really, theoretically, shouldn't hurt anyone - I mean, it's a song! Step back for five seconds and laugh.

I wear clothes that most people in the Midwest would probably deem inappropriate at my age. And I rock a bikini all summer long. I know that it's not normal, but I just don't care. I live once.

It seems to me like the Internet allows you to break that structure a little bit. You know, here's your CD that's going into stores, here's your EP that you offer online, here's a subscription for songs you recorded on the road, here's your live stuff streaming.

Everyone wants to get into soundtracks. Everyone wants to do songs here and there. But, I think they want it for different reasons. I think I'm just tumbling through my life, enjoying playing with everybody.

I knew that collaborating on songwriting would be difficult for a lot of people, because I was known very much, for my independence and the fact that I wrote these quirky songs that were not typical structure, not typical sound - you know, really original stuff.

Am I coasting on some early success? Yeah. It was a good lucky break for me. But I would rather earn my way back again than simply conform to what people are expecting.

The big news already broke. The file-sharing and all that stuff, it's a done deal. And I think figuring out how to make that a fair exchange for the people that make music is still an issue.

I have that thrill-seeking mentality, so when people want to know why my incarnations keep changing, or why I'll do something different than I did before, it's that same impulse.

So how does Liz Phair feel about Lana Del Rey? Well, as a recording artist, I've been hated, I've been ridiculed, and conversely, hailed as the second coming. All that matters in the end is that I've been heard.

It makes sense - you wanna gather a lot of people together, and Vegas really does that well. New York can, but you know the hassles. I've lived there. It's an entirely different beast.

You're really creative when you're in an environment that you don't know how to handle. So collaborating was like that for me. I think that was one of the reasons why I knew I was gonna get a challenging reaction.

The other day I was reading a blog and I linked over to Streisand's Web site, and it was amazing politically. She's so insightful and incisive. And she also says whatever she wants.

Composing gives me a chance to work in multiple dimensions and helps me pare down my melodies into what is essential. Learning new skills has always energized me and scoring has opened up a world of sonic possibilities.

My identity has everything to do with me and my instrument. It doesn't have to do with what production style I use, or how many people played on it, whether it's sparse or grandiose or whatever. And I'm social, frankly.

Like, I kind of developed my musical style in a vacuum. Even though I listen to a lot of stuff, the way I wrote was in my bedroom, really privately. It's still the way I write, actually.

Women's bodies are used to sell anything and everything because it works, it grabs people's attention, and advertisers aren't going to stop using something that works.

I mean, I kind of remember... I'm 36 now, so it's kind of hard for me to relate to what it was like when I was 25, or 24, but I do remember a period in time when that's how I defined who I was, by the music I listened to and the movies I went to.